Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Tian (天) is one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang dynasty (17th―11th century BCE), the Chinese referred to their highest god as Shangdi or Di (帝, 'Lord'). [1] During the following Zhou dynasty, Tian became synonymous with this figure.
Wufang Shangdi (五方上帝), the order of Heaven inscribing worlds as tán 壇, "altar", the Chinese concept equivalent to the Indian mandala. The supreme God conceptualised as the Yellow Deity, and Xuanyuan as its human form, is the heart of the universe and the other Four Deities are his emanations.
The Wǔfāng Shàngdì (五方上帝 "Five Regions' Highest Deities" or "Highest Deities of the Five Regions" [note 1]), or simply Wǔdì (五帝 "Five Deities") or Wǔshén (五神 "Five Gods") [3] are, in Chinese canonical texts and common Chinese religion, the fivefold manifestation of the supreme God of Heaven (天 Tiān, or equivalently 上帝 Shàngdì).
Heaven is a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophies, and religions, and is on one end of the spectrum a synonym of Shangdi ("Supreme Deity") and on the other naturalistic end, a synonym for nature and the sky. The Chinese term for "heaven", Tian (天), derives from the name of the supreme deity of the Zhou dynasty.
Chinese mythology holds that the Jade Emperor was charged with running of the three realms: heaven, hell, and the realm of the living. The Jade Emperor adjudicated and meted out rewards and remedies to saints, the living, and the deceased according to a merit system loosely called the Jade Principles Golden Script (玉律金篇, Yù lǜ jīn piān
The Four Heavenly Ministers (Chinese: 四御; pinyin: Sì yù), also translated as the Four Sovereigns, are four of the highest sky deities of Daoism and subordinate only to the Three Pure Ones (Chinese: 三清; pinyin: Sān qīng). They assist the Three Pure Ones in administering all phenomenon of the universe. [1] [2] [full citation needed]
Along with Chinese folklore, Chinese mythology forms an important part of Chinese folk religion (Yang et al 2005, 4). Many stories regarding characters and events of the distant past have a double tradition: ones which present a more historicized or euhemerized version and ones which presents a more mythological version (Yang et al 2005, 12–13).
Shangdi (Chinese: 上帝; pinyin: Shàngdì; Wade–Giles: Shang 4 Ti 4), also called simply Di (Chinese: 帝; pinyin: Dì; lit. 'God'), [1] is the name of the Chinese Highest Deity or "Lord Above" in the theology of the classical texts, especially deriving from Shang theology and finding an equivalent in the later Tiān ("Heaven" or "Great Whole") of Zhou theology.